Crew 2 - Stephen, Tom Davies (President), Claire Allen, Dave - stroke.

Crew 3 - Lance, Dave, Nicholas and Gripper (bow). Note Lance's silly hat and his odd west-country accent that he has strengthened having seen his Mother over Christmas!

The Mass start. Crew 1 (Enya, Susanna, Katherine and Melissa) lead off from Emmanuel Footbridge followed 2 lengths by Crew 2 and 1 length behind by Gripper's Crew 3. However, Grip can't count one length so they were actually only a few feet apart at the start (sour grapes...?)

The girls lead off the start.... holding their distance over crew 2 for about half the 600m distance...

Crew 2 closes on the girls.... Melissa takes the inside line around the bend and Stephen is warned by Shep the start marshall, umpire and chief cheater from his bike on the bank to go wide....

Meanwhile at the back of the pack, Grippers crew have recovered from a slight crustacean incident and work hard to regain territory.

The "bumping" finish, as Stephen manfully avoids hitting the girls while Gripper closes fast..... and off to the right is Karthick Tadinada hiding under a willow tree in his single hoping not to get hit! Curly Galbraith the finish umpire with his dogs declared the girls the winners..... biased, of course.

And so we all ended up sitting outside the Old Spring waiting for it to open at midday.

[Note: traditionally these are married vs singles races but that would have been a walkover!]